Bolivia

La Paz

Aranjuez

Minutes away from La Paz and in the valley below Oberland (the popular overlander’s hangout) is Valle de Aranjuez. It is composed of about a dozen sectors spread out on both sides of the river. No need for gear, it’s only sport here including the cracks. The rock is… interesting. Lot’s of mediocre sandstone mixed with pretty smooth conglomerate. That said, there’s enough well equipped, thought provoking routes on good rock to keep you busy while you’re in the area. Also nice is the parking situation. There is a park stretching through the base of the valley that is quite safe for leaving a vehicle (or stealth camping). The approaches are short and the fins tend to have routes on each side which makes it easy to chase or dodge the sun.

On the road side of the valley. Best crag we climbed at – both sidesOpposite side of the previous picThis is on the other side of the river from the road. We were rained/hailed off after only a few routes but we thought the side of the valley with the road had better rock, routes, and bolting.

This is a good place to camp just South of Laguna Colorado. When we pulled into the canyon to camp we were amazed at the quality of the rock. There are endless lines to be done. Not the tallest, but high quality and SPLITTER! The most limiting factor that prevented us from doing more new routes was only having doubles with us. Having three, four, or more in whatever size you’d like to climb would go a long ways. The rock is very good volcanic stone with some features to use outside of the cracks as well. Also, if you boulder, bring your pad – the bouldering potential here is probably better than the climbing, which is also excellent. You can do FAs for as long as your supplies last at 14,000+ feet!!!

The entrance to the canyon. It gets bigger a bit further in. We never even got near the end, it goes a long waysBolivian Strut Buster (5.6)CragKungCorner (10a)